# Independent

"Over time, I realized, you have to read between the lines."

From documentaries to commercials to feature films, Javier Solórzano Casarin takes us on a step-by-step retelling of how his love for filmmaking grew into a lifetime passion.

Someone, eventually, is going to take a risk on a show they don’t have to invest heavily into. Maybe one that’s already made?

I remember the intense emotionality of that day—there wasn't a dry eye in the room.

If you’re a filmmaker, you’re either creating content or over in the corner crying.

Just because a film is short doesn’t mean that it’s easy or cheap to produce. Like any film, it’s a complex, potentially stressful, and complicated undertaking.

Friends and people who believe in you are worth 10x more than funding—and they'll make the journey a lot more fun.

In a world where female directors are scarce, this sisterhood and creative collective provides more momentum for all of them to make it to the mountain top. And to do it together.

My answer is a frustrating one, but it is an answer. You must give yourself agency over your work and your career. You must reach out to what’s in your means and take action: make things.

I didn't want to say it. As I scrambled through my phone looking for photos of Canoe #1 on the roof of the Kia—Did we really not take a photo?

As “working screenwriters” who’d already at that point grown terminally ill of the bureaucracy surrounding film productions and the industry in general, we vowed to make this maverick film completely outside of the traditional channels and system.

If the film industry was a meritocracy based solely on effort, or finding a way to make something great with limited budgets, Hollywood would look very, very different. But it doesn’t.

Wired Shut writer/producer, Peter Malone Elliott, and director, Alexander Sharp, discuss the behind-the-scenes details of taking their feature film, from idea to completion.

We were in a position that many of our screenwriter friends were envious of … but we were miserable.

But to actually direct—something scripted no less—felt like a sham. People went to school for that. Or they had climbed the proverbial ladder to earn it.